Watch Divers Recover American Remains At WWII Crash Site

The bomber crashed in 1944.

FacebookA submerged plane being inspected by a team from the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center.

The United States government is still searching for around 200 Americans who died in Croatia during World War II.

And now, it’s possible that at least one of those soldiers has been found.

Approximately 130 feet below the surface of the Adriatic Sea lie the remains of the Tulsamerican plane, the last B-24 Liberator bomber model built near the end of the war. It crashed near Vis Island — an important Ally airbase — in 1944.

Members of the Croatian Defense Ministry and the National Parks Service Submerged Resource Center searched for 17 years before finding the plane’s remains in 2010.

Wikimedia CommonsA Consolidated B-24 Liberator in the 1940’s

They knew that three members of the aircraft’s ten-person crew died in the crash, but they’re still unsure which soldier (or soldiers) they found this month.

“The remains of human bones have been found,” Mate Barica, an archaeologist with Zadar University, told CBS. “But we can’t say anything without further analysis.”

The Ministry of Croatian Veterans has committed to helping the US recover the rest of the missing Americans, pledging to forge an agreement to facilitate the ongoing search.